INCOMPLETE CHRISTMAS

December 25, 2016 Sunday

Location : Enroute to singapore

 

Much has happened from my last entry, Christmas day has arrived, this day has to be a day of celebration but I can't exactly feel happy and to be honest its empty , very empty and incomplete. Probably because this is the first Christmas that my parents are gone, and I had a lot of flashbacks every now and then of the life I had with them before I came this ship. Now the feeling is just simply empty knowing that they're dead and its only me and my younger sister around.

 

Probably id be having a lot of adjusting at the house when I get back, trying to move on with life and see how things work out for me. I just don’t feel like smiling at this moment, but again merry Christmas.

CATS OUT OF THE BAG

December 05, 2016 Monday

Location: From UAE going back to Saudi Arabia

 

It's now official, after much thinking and analyzing the situation I had passed to the captain myat my "early vacation" leave. I submitted my letter last November 28 and took the opportunity that Captain Myat was around his office. Good thing Captain was kind enough and didn’t ask any further question on why I was submitting the letter.

 

Originally I was planning to submit it on the 26th , but on that day I wasn't about to make a good timing and by the time I went to captains day room it was already closed - so I planned to go on the next day. On the following day again it was interrupted on the fact that the ship will anchor, so Its simply postponed and finally on the 28th around 7pm I finally got the good timing.

 

Felt so relieved in submitting my "early vacation" letter , as if like a big rock has been lifted to me - after all this company, principal and ship has been very unpleasant and I desire only to end this contract as soon as possible. Now I'm assured that I will be leaving this ship , of course the final word will still come from the CF Sharp but I hardly doubt they will disagree on my departure after the disagreements I had with them.

 

For the blog (and public) information , writing an "early vacation" doesn’t have to be fancy an printed on a printer - the only thing that is needed is a simple paper and pen (or pencil) and can be made via hand written.

 

Here is the sample I drafted

 

    ******************************************************************

 

Dear Mam / Sir

 

Good day,(state my full complete name) Undersigned on this letter would like to inform your good office that I request a reliever and get repatriated for early vacation, So that I can renew my expiring papers this january 2017. I am now going on my 7th month this December and will be on the 8th month on January next year. 

 

I hope you would grant my request and ask for a reliever this 3nd week of December onwards or any week of January. Thank you for hearing my request and appeal for your consideration

 

(my name and rank)

Crew of "Boston Eagle"

 

   ********************************************************************

 

A few days have passed and during that this ship is berthed on UAE Buoy , Information came to leak on the ship that I was trying to achieve "early vacation" . I basically have no idea on how that info leaked and only surmise that some A.B's here simply can't shut their mouth or even bother not to look or someone else's paper and respect privacy, anyway this behavior is typical among Filipino's and it's true that I did request it anyway. Besides, what is it to them if I did made a request ?! For all I know I had already qualified on the minimum set of requirements

 

During Sundays safety meeting, it was finally disclosed to by the captain about my true intentions on having an early vacation - IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CREW. For me its "cats out of the bag" and it's no more secret to almost everyone here that I'd be leaving early and now official. Initially I was the only one who planning to have an "early vacation" but during the discussion on the safety meeting , it was a surprise that Oiler Lester Suarez and Pumpman Obina Mondiego expressed their intention of getting an early vacation as well - totally unexpected for me , but whether or not folk here joined on my stunt show, I will still go ahead of it anyway in pursuing to getting out of this ship. Seriously I'm glad that I'm not the only one who desire's getting out of this ship, it add more validity of my claim in getting out of here as soon as possible.

 

In other news

 

The Fujairah mooring is a bit different this time, instead of the traditional dock waiting for us - it ended up mooring in a buoy. The thing here is that mooring in the buoy is different and very easy , just simple attach the chain from the buoy to the local bar here on the deck and that’s it. I took the liberty in taking pictures on the mooring in a buoy

 

After the discharge on Fujairah. This ship headed out in Saudi Arabia again to load some cargo    

 

 

THE KINGDOM

Journal entry: November 22, 2016 Tuesday

Location: Saudi Arabia

 

 

With a snap its already going near to the end of the month of November, and as what I had been long awaiting for is that I will get to finally submit my "early vacation" request to CF Sharp. I think it’s the best that I go ahead and hesitate  no further in submitting this request , and besides the working conditions on this ship are not that comfortable enough for any Filipino seaman.

 

So far the news on work is that after a brief loading operation in Saudi Arabia, this ship went back again here in Fujairah to await "For Orders" . While in Saudi Arabia , everyone here in this ship was distress to learn on the telex massage coming from the Saudi government that some sort of team will be boarding this ship as soon as it docks and that this "team" will be searching the whole ship for any signs of contraband to the Saudi Government like for example Magazines, DVD , Cd, Hard disk - any storage device that contains pornography and any anti-Islamic materials , aside from the usual contraband of drugs and firearms.

 

Immediately the whole crew of the ship deposited those related stuff to the bond store. On myself I deposited 2 hard disk drives that I had and left one disk drive to hid in my cabin, as a backup. Fortunately the said "inspection team" never arrived and basically were free again to get back those materials from the bond store. Sadly it turns out that depositing my hard drives to the bond store was a bad idea and that I couldn’t get back my hard drives yet, according to "james" the deck cadet I spoke with and in charge of the bond store,. They said that they can't release my hard drives yet from the bond store until this ship leaves the waters of any Muslim countries. To my annoyance, I recalled that this ship is permanently stationed here in the middle east gulf area and most if not all the countries here are Muslim - so expect that my 2 hard disk drives won't be returning anytime soon. 

 

Despite the annoyance, I'm glad that I didn’t deposited my third hard drive to the bond store - or else I wouldn’t have any entertainment media at all on my cabin to enjoy myself with. It was scary and risky at first to keep one hard drive inside my cabin and had to hid it extra carefully, I was not very comfortable and even  had second thoughts of depositing it just to make sure. But now recalling back - it was a good idea that I had kept one.

 

In other matters,

 

For now the weather in the middle east gulf area is very comfortable even on noon time, no thanks to the winter season from Europe. So I consider myself very lucky on this situation that the middle east has a cooler weather right now, for now the latest weather forecast is that the temperature is 15 degrees Celsius lowest and something about 30 degrees Celsius the highest in noon time. It won't be a problem for me working on this time of the year at the deck - well at least the only thing I have to deal with is the sand storm in this area.  

 

In another news

 

A couple of days ago, a surveyor visited this ship to conduct some sort of audit on the ships performance and safety regulations as well. We were busy as usual sorting out all sorts of matters related to the ship, apparently I wasn't called out during the arrival of the said inspectors and probably they figured that it would be best I was locked inside the cabin. During noontime I resumed my usual work routing and wore the standard PPE for the time being since the inspectors are still around.

 

Late in the afternoon I was surprised to learned that , the inspector would be conducting a one on one and private interview on each crew . We all knew what it meant and that the inspector is asking us confidentially if there is some problems that we would like to discuss with him privately.

 

When it was my turn to be interview, I didn’t mentioned anything and simply played defensively - a no tell, no ask policy. Another reason why I kept silent was because on the fact of trust, I cannot simply take the chance that this surveyor will reveal the names of the people who complain about the management of this ship. Luckily my interview was very quick.

       

FAREWELL TO MY PARENTS

Journal entry : November 18, 2016

Location: en route to Saudi Arabia

 

 

I Haven't wrote anything on these past couple of days , Probably because I was busy pondering things and received news from my sister that mom has passed away. I was totally devastated to hear the news and wasn't in the mood to do anything even on work - to me everything seems meaningless now, and there's no point in being a sailor anymore. I haven't asked the exact details on how mom died and was in no position to ask, I was simply too grief stricken to know what happened. The only known details I know on mom's death was she died of cardiac congestion, a result from too much creatinine levels in the blood from kidney failure. Before learning of my mom's death , all that I know back home was that the kidney dialysis machines of Amang Rodriguez Hospital broke down and mom was advised to transfer to another hospital for treatment until the machines were fix, the next news that came in after a couple of days was that mom implants and vein "died" and my sister was in a frantic race of either constructing a new implant on mom 's left arm and putting an "IG" cut connecting to mom hearts as a remedy while the new implant is being constructed. Then after that , there was silent communication between me and the house for almost a week.

 

November 10 came by and was busy doing a lot of stuff back home, when I opened my face book page - I was immediately greeted by my younger sisters message informing me that our mom just passed away. There I felt a cold chill upon hearing the news as if some part of me just died, I was grief stricken and couldn't focus on work properly. I was lucky that I always wore a mask and some protective shades , part of my face protection or else they would have seen me having tears or watery eyes.

 

No Words can express my loss of both my parents this year, 5 months ago dad died suddenly now mom died on the same year. My sister and I are now both orphans and alone on this world, so we have to be strong to face what lies ahead in life.

MOONLIGHT IN PAKISTAN

Journal entry : November 09, 2016

Location : Karachi Pakistan

 

Soon after the Saudi Arabia Loading ops was finish, this ship went to its next destination which is Karachi , Pakistan. It took only about roughly three days to reach the area on this ship and from here it will discharge its cargo,

 

So far the weather in Karachi Pakistan is a bit warm compared to Saudi Arabia right now, but the change of temperature is tolerable - feels just like the early summer days in the Philippines. I haven't clarified yet if the discharge operation here will be done on STS (ship to ship transfer) or be done in a port facility, But if it's an STS kind of operation then it's easy for the mooring and Unmooring part.

 

As of the moment , My day work was reduced to being just until 2.45 pm in exchange that there will be a anti - piracy watch for me every midnight, just to keep out people from stealing property from the ship. Basically I think Pakistan is a quiet place and not much fuss will happen here.

 

First few days of Anti-piracy watch was no big deal for me, although sleep was very much needed and most of the time I just went in the corner to take some naps and pictures, The most annoying part of this anti-piracy watch was that our Indian chief mate won't let me rest or take an off - not until the sun rises, which basically is all the way up till 6.30 am, That asshole even disturbed me when I was in the middle of a bath and told me to return to work despite I had already completed my 12mignight to 6am working shift.

 

On the third day of Anti-Piracy watch, I was already finish on my working shift - as in just 15 minutes from being off on work, when suddenly I received a message from the Indian chief mate on the radio telling me to wake up bosun and O.S. mark and that we will be heaving anchor at 6am

 

 

 

TRANSFER OF MOORING STATION

Journal Entry: November 04, 2016 Friday

Location: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

 

Ship never stayed long on the Fujairah anchorage in UAE, it only stayed for a day just to do provisioning and bunkering and that’s about it,. Surprisingly the weather in Fujairah now is beautiful and somewhat cooler than my previous visit. Definitely very tolerable weather.

 

After this ship business is done in Fujairah, it went towards Saudi Arabia for loading of cargo. This ship stayed there for about three to four days before going to a port facility nearby.

 

The loading operation on Saudi Arabia was real quick , lasted only within at least 12 hours , apparently because only a limited cargo tanks was loaded and not all. During my whole 6 hour long shift , I was very busy being ordered around to check the sounding of the ballast tank. Which meant me having a sounding tape tool all the time.

 

Immediately after my second shift, The whole process of loading was already completed and went straight ahead on unmooring. The mooring stations have been changed for some of the crew which includes me, Apparently me and Pump Man Obina are now assigned on the forward mooring station and were to assist Bosun Rodrigo and O.S. Mark there , Starting now and onwards.

 

Earlier I thought Pump Man Obina was just joking around when he said one time "that were supposedly to be shifted to forward mooring station" , I never took his statement seriously and dismissed it as a joke. Now it turns out that it was for real. Never really liked to be in the forward mooring station to begin with, and it's been a while since I was there - The work there is always hectic and more problematic for me in case I needed something compared to being in the aft mooring station. I was reminded of that distaste when BOSUN keeps bitching around and lecturing me on what to do and not to do during both mooring and unmooring time.

FORMATION OF A GROUP

Blog Entry: October 22, 2016 Saturday

Location : Enroute to Fujairah UAE

 

It's been a week that this ship is adrift in middle of the Indian Ocean, and three weeks since we left the ship yard on Singapore (to be specific 22 days) . There has been no news yet when this ship will be going aside from rough speculation that it might be headed to the middle east to load some cargo,

 

For the moment these past 22 days have been peaceful and doing the same old routine work of deck maintenance for me such as painting , in some occasions I would help Pump man on his usual work in the Pump room maintenance. Most of the time I'm just left to do work in housekeeping part.

 

Lately I had been thinking of forming a face book group, something that is very similar to the successful Wiki Leaks website - only it’s a Philippine Maritime Version.  Exactly like a public disclosure / Intelligence Group for Filipino sailors, I had been long thinking about this because of the suppression of freedom of speech and idea's in this sector. Probably because of my recent dissatisfaction on how the way I was treated by UFS "Seaman's Union" over my discrimination complaints against CF Sharp. They said something that my accusations were baseless and that I was just simply a "troublemaker" , they even threaten me when I was just telling the truth - to simply put they were very bias to CF Sharp , despite self-proclaiming themselves as "Seaman's Union" . Anyway it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that I'm making my own group , one that is more transparent and not bias, or even influenced by abusive shipping companies here and its main purpose is to provide helpful information and warn Filipino sailors . Currently I'm still thinking of a name to call this group.

 

In other news..

 

Lately I had been experiencing some suspicious "add friends" on my social media account , what more suspicious is that it goes in the same manner that a review agency or company of some sort wants to add me as a friend. Apparently I suspect that this is some form of surveillance of some kind, (likely from whom I made enemies with recently). I suspect this might came from CF Sharp and would be doing "Monitoring" if I posted anything that is against them.  Heck they even "followed" my twitter account, which I blocked the user from ever

 

Well sorry to disappoint this mother fucker, do they think I'm that stupid ?! Seriously their doing a piss poor job when it comes to monitoring and doing surveillance on employee's, I don’t add people who I don’t know personally on my professional social media accounts. So if they really want to find "dirt" on my accounts then they have to be more creative otherwise their just stalking.

 

In news related to work

 

There has now been an update on the voyage travel of this ship - and it doesn’t look pretty. From what I head on Deck Cadet "James" (British National) , the ship will have a loading voyages from Fujairah UAE , then will go to Saudi Arabia and finally somewhere in Pakistan. To sum it up , it’s a middle east voyage.

 

Based on the weather service online (check google), the weather in the middle east should be a bit cooler now compared to last time this ship was here, like somewhere in the 28 degrees Celsius lowest and highest is around 33 to 35 degrees Celsius (like summer weather in the Philippines) . I do hope the weather forecast is accurate, or else I am doomed again on the hot weather.

 

Speaking of which , my private water storage in now down 50 percent after a month. Nothing unusual on that part and I have already stocked up water and food supplies for two months , its normal that the remaining is already half however the problem is about replenishing the water. The water filter is still up to now working properly and produces little water, barely enough to fill a liter.

SUSPICION

Blog Entry: October 18, 2016 Tuesday

Location : Somewhere Adrift in the Indian Ocean

 

Its been a few days (or weeks ) now since the social media scandal I got myself into and I'm starting to think that the crew here already knew what I posted in Facebook. I surmise that it might have already reached here on this ship about the incident, I not sure as well if I'm just being paranoid about it - the only thing I could do for now is kept silent and stay calm even if some of the crew are already joking it lightly and made indirect reference about me and the incident.

 

So what trigger my paranoia again ?! I was already finished helping pump man obina on his work in the pump room in clearing the oil that leaked there and went back to BOSUN Rodrigo in helping put up the anti-piracy razors wires at the deck - everything was doing fine and normal work for about an hour when we suddenly talked about Chief Cook then slowly shifted to me the discussion of the topic and jokingly told by the BOSUN Rodrigo "That because of me and what I posted, he was called recently at the bridge and is now under investigation", then another comment followed by A.B. "Alvin" which didn’t helped saying " It's ok on your posting, all of us here on this ship got dragged in it anyway" .

 

Those indirect comments sent a chill down on my spine even if it’s a hot day (35 degrees Celsius), and Literary broke out in cold sweat. On my perception, What was those joke's mean anyway ??? Is it just a coincidence or probably they knew something about the incident ? And if so , how did they found out ??? . I just kept silent on the joke, but was obviously bothered - it was not noticeable given that I'm clad heavily by working clothes and equipment from head to foot.

 

I still continued on my work., though I was silent as a dead man. Silent but my mind was in full throttle of thinking, especially about the term mentioned "Under Investigation" which in Filipino pop culture meant , "Were finding whose fault it was, and point everything on him". I'm not surprise if this is the case and that CF Sharp Ship management is looking out for blood, (Retaliation and Revenge ). Honestly I do know how this story ends and obviously it's not going to end well for me for speaking out against discrimination.

DRESSED TO BE KILLED

Blog Entry: October 16, 2016

Location : Adrift Somewhere in the Indian Ocean

 

Been basically depressed for a couple of days now and amid fears and paranoia about reprisals coming from CF Sharp. I was busy thinking of the worst case scenario that they could throw at me when UFS blew my cover, and exposed me. Despite the emotional depression I had been having, I still have to act or at least "pretend" nothing happened and do my usual work routine schedule, at least here on these ship only three people knew what happened and even if they have knowledge , they don’t have the full details on what was the trouble I got myself into.

 

This may sound ridiculous , but just to rid myself of depression. I took in some pictures and dressed myself on some good clothes like a wannabe fustrated commercial model - normally I would just go outdoors a little to cope up with the stress but since it's not possible, I just decided to dress up and dress on my best clothes. 

 

And here is what I looked like…

FOR THE BETTER ?

BLOG ENTRY: October 11, 2016 Tuesday

Location : Somewhere in Indian Ocean

 

As the days went by here at the anchorage , everything was basically the same old routine. Paint the welded new metal with primer paint , Garbage segregation etc. The new crew here seems to be pleasant as far as I know and have new improved (and far less repressive) Policies.

 

Lately I had been in trouble on the social media, this time apparently something I posted in Facebook which is against on my current company and principal I'm hanging out (CF Sharp and Norstar) . Basically I have no idea how it got to their attention, about my negative postings against them - I could only speculate two things.

 

One speculation running thru my head, was the posting I made in "Tinig ng Marino" Facebook group ( a UFS , filipino seaman workers union social media arm) , obviously on my previous journal entries , I have written that the conversation went bad with Nelson Ramirez even threating me that he will report me on CF Sharp about my so called "irresponsible" media posting. But the posting I made there was deleted and my deletion of that post in the face book group sanitize any evidence that would link me on that incident. Aside from the fact that Mr. Nelson Ramirez talked to the CF sharp Management, but it’s a far cry to actually identify me.

 

Another speculation was that one of my friends in Facebook leaked my post , and told it to Mr. Lawrence who contacted chief cook via his tablet PC and notified me about the post, who which in turned had me deleted all the previous entries I made against CF Sharp and Norstar. Its high likely this was the case since my FB account was in "private" and only my friends and me can actually see the post I had made.

 

After a few hours of careful thinking , it became clear to me and its by just accident that I pointed myself into harm's way inadvertently when I tagged my friends on that post. From what I learned on the Facebook, whenever I had "tagged" my FB friends on a post , I risk myself in being seen by friends of FB friends on my post. To simply put the 2nd degree friends can see what I'm posting if I use the "tagged" option. So basically it sums down that if I'm going to post anything nasty or negative to any person or entity , make sure I do not use the "TAGGED" option at all , to maintain my privacy.

 

From this point on , NO MORE USE OF THE OPTION "TAGGED" so I won't be trouble the next time.

 

Unexpectedly a few days after the notice , there has been changes. The internet limitation of 100 Mb per month was put back to its old deal which is 4 hours per day , and believe it or not - even the bond store now doesn’t require us to pay in paper cash and will be just in salary deduction now. This may sound sweet and nice but being naturally cautious, I'm starting to have doubts that this may sound all too good. The timing of discovery of my FB post and the changes on policy have been too perfect and make me believe something is not right and CF Sharp Management maybe planning something , probably a reprisal of some sort.

 

Honestly this is a very common occurrence in the Philippine maritime community about the suppression of freedom of inquiry and speech. Those who speak out (or even hint) and question the authority are either "Black listed" or end up being "Not for hire" which eventually lead to the seafarer's career being ruined, either the complaint was valid or not. That is the harsh reality of being a sailor in the Philippines - too many vulnerabilities, one stroke and all of it - as in EVERYTHING gets thrown away like yesterday's breakfast. the illegal "black listing" practice that has already been condemned by ITF and countless other workers unions in other countries,

 

in the Philippines, POEA denies such list exist OFFICIALLY , but UNOFFICIALLY it is in practice and is a controlling factor in suppression of sailors - particularly Freedom of inquiry    

 

To avoid any more problems , have a damage control on the issue and that there's no possibility that they will find any "dirt" on my social media accounts. I have to temporarily suspend any publications on my blog until I could safely assure that the threat of any retaliation is cleared and that I'm already in the safe distance away from CF Sharp and Norstar.